The sumo wars at the end were fun again.
People don’t always show their enthusiasm all the time, but it came out during the sumo wars. And I think the class ended on a high note for everyone. The kids were done. I was done. They beat my bot. They learned a bit about programming. They had to continually adjust their strategies as new vehicles were introduced. They adapted and learned without it feeling like learning. Hopefully.
The kids that won were the ones that ripped off my idea early on. I tried to adapt to exploit the weaknesses of my design, but I couldn’t build one fast enough that was accurate enough. Basically, I wanted to run around them (cause they just drove forward) and then push them from behind. Though I couldn’t reliably get behind them. Others used that idea a bit, but the winning team’s brute force was just too much for everyone to handle. They didn’t go undefeated, but they weren’t really ever threatened. The girls in the contest (one in the class and one was the TA) did pretty well too. TA ended up in 3rd place. And the girl that was enrolled, even though her robot was destroyed after each session, managed 6th place out of 10.
Some of them did ask me if I was teaching the course again next year. We left it vague as to whether or not that was a good thing or not. And I might. Even though on Monday and Tuesday, I’m kicking myself for doing it, by Thursday and Friday things are fine.